PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - de Candia, Antonio
AU  - Gamba, Andrea
AU  - Cavalli, Fausto
AU  - Coniglio, Antonio
AU  - Di Talia, Stefano
AU  - Bussolino, Federico
AU  - Serini, Guido
TI  - A Simulation Environment for Directional Sensing as a Phase Separation Process
AID  - 10.1126/stke.3782007pl1
DP  - 2007 Mar 20
TA  - Science's STKE
PG  - pl1--pl1
VI  - 2007
IP  - 378
4099  - http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2007/378/pl1.short
4100  - http://stke.sciencemag.org/content/2007/378/pl1.full
SO  - Sci. STKE2007 Mar 20; 2007
AB  - The ability of eukaryotic cells to navigate along spatial gradients of extracellular guidance cues is crucial for embryonic development, tissue regeneration, and cancer progression. One proposed model for chemotaxis is a phosphoinositide-based phase separation process, which takes place at the plasma membrane upon chemoattractant stimulation and triggers directional motility of eukaryotic cells. Here, we make available virtual-cell software that allows the execution and spatiotemporal analysis of in silico chemotaxis experiments, in which the user can control physical and chemical parameters as well as the number and position of chemoattractant sources.